Playing With Fashion: Guda Koster’s Surreal Worlds

The surreal sculptures, installations, and photographs of Dutch artist Guda Koster subvert fashion and create entirely new worlds with its elements. Considering herself more sculptor than photographer, each of these images begin with a live experience that has been constructed, cut, sewn, posed, and then photographed with a timer, as the artist is often present in the pieces.

On an interview on her website, the artist addresses why she’s using the medium of textiles: “Clothing doesn’t just have a function but also conveys a message,” Koster says. “In our everyday lives we communicate identity and social position primarily by means of our clothing. Clothing can be seen as a visual art form that expresses the way we see ourselves and our relationship with the world around us.”

While the works can be both absorbing and harrowing, there’s also a lighthearted quality to much of Koster’s work. Each fabric and pattern becomes its own, separate personality when manipulated by the hands of the artist. Along with the disciplines of design, architecture, photography, there’s a theatrical quality to the work that makes an in-person experience a necessity for some of the works.